Forcella: Fried Pizza Comes to the Bowery at This New York Pizza Restaurant
Early last summer the Neapolitan pizzaiolo Giulio Adriani opened Forcella in Williamsburg, attracting crowds right from the start for his fried pizza, and then keeping the place packed with everything else on his lengthy, extremely inviting pizza menu. Now, just a few months later, Adriani has jumped the river with a brand new, much larger Forcella for Manhattan, located on that bustling, food-filled stretch of the Bowery from Houston on up, and serving the same sort of fresh-ingredient, reasonably-priced, crowd-pleasing fare as his Brooklyn place.
We went to Forcella on Bowery a couple of times in its first week, and are pleased to report that the food, and the inviting room, totally met our pizza-party expectations. The famous deep-fried Montanara, for instance, is not something we’d eat every day (or, at least, not something we could get away with eating every day), but is definitely worth an order or two when you go. This is basically a fried dough Margherita pie… like a zeppole, but with more salt, and topped with beautifully fresh tomato sauce, basil, and mozzarella instead of powdered sugar, then baked in Forcella’s Italian-imported, raging-hot, wood-fired oven for 60 seconds, to add some crackle and crunch to the proceedings.
Diving into the Pizze Rosse section of the Forcella menu, we were amply rewarded with a lovely Materdei pie, a baked (not fried) Margherita with a profusion of nicely funky hot salami slices on top, made crispy and chewy by the oven. Delicious. The salads at Forcella on Bowery are also very good, balanced, bright–including the Amalfi with its bitter greens, rich and creamy gorgonzola, pear slices and nuts; and the Ischia, which combines arugula, fennel, orange and olives to refreshing effect. So although there’s no shortage of food choices in this part of town–Pulino’s, Peels, DBGB, Hecho en Dumbo, Hung Ry, to name just a few–Forcella Manhattan is absolutely a welcome addition to our Bowery dining options.
Forcella on Bowery details
Forcella Manhattan is located on Bowery near Bond Street, and is open on Monday through Friday from 12:00 noon to 4:30, and then again from 5:30 until 11:00 p.m. On weekends Forcella Manhattan is open from noon straight through to 12:00 midnight. For more information and a look at the Forcella menu, please see the Forcella website, here
Posted in Glenwood News | Tagged Deep fried montanara pie • Forcella • Fried pizza • Giulio Adriani • Montanara pie • New York pizza restaurant • NYC pizza restaurant
